Sharks vs. Blackhawks blog

Is the West the best?

05.14.2010 / 3:42 PM ET

Bruins coach Claude Julien was asked at his press conference if the Stanley Cup Playoff series outcomes indicate the Eastern Conference, where the sixth and seventh seeds will battle tonight to determine who will host the eighth seed in the conference final, has more parity than the Western Conference, where the top two seeds are playing in the conference final.

"It’s been a pretty strange situation in our conference," Julien said. "You see the (top) teams get bumped out, some of them in the first round, some in the second round, so that just goes to show you, again, we keep using the word parity (but) you never know. I think what's going on right now, I guess in our conference this year, which was the case a few years back in the other conferences, is that the teams that are left right now really battled hard to get into the playoffs. Somehow, and as I mentioned, our team, you get into the playoffs, you're actually building some momentum getting into the playoffs and I think the three teams that are left had built momentum going in just like the Edmonton Oilers (in 2006), just creeping into the playoffs, and because they had to battle to get in, they build momentum going in and that sometimes is a good thing. So that to me is what you're seeing right now with the sixth, seventh and eighth seeds that are still alive right now."

-- John McGourty